So Valentine’s Day is coming up, a day that single people loathe or otherwise avoid, and couple’s feel obligated to uphold. The origins of the holiday are fuzzy at best and it has been highly commercialized ever since. It is also the same weekend that the movie adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey comes out.

Now, there’s a lot what I can say about 50 Shades of Grey, very little of it positive, but since I have never actually read the book, I will keep them to myself. Instead I will present to you an interesting perspective on the origin of the story.

People used to play the game, “Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon,” which is a fun way of taking one person or film and tracing their path backward to something that would, at first thought, seem completely unrelated. However, the game is more than a way to trace actors.

As many know, 50 Shades of Grey started out as fan fiction of the Twilight series written by E. L. James, but with a decidedly kinky twist. It has been heavily modified since, yes, but the link is there. Twilight, by contrast, is a Vampire romance novel of questionable quality, but it wasn’t always that way. Stephenie Meyer originally wrote it as a Mormon-influenced romance novel, but later revised it to broaden her book’s appeal.

Combining these three things, it provides a very interesting trail…

50 Shades of Grey is a novel, revised from a fan fiction story, based on the Twilight series, which itself was a heavily adapted Mormon teen romance novel.

Think on that, and have a happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I’m going to go watch “Kingsmen: The Secret Service.”